Melih Oztalay

My Expertise

Area(s) of expertise: Internet Marketing Summary of expertise: Strong entrepreneurial ability that includes: - Innovation - Imagination - Creativity - Resourcefulness - Early Adopter of Ideas More than 20 years of successful business experience in entrepreneurial environment. Primary focus on business development, stategy, sales, execution and management. Secondary focus on new Internet technologies and a strong ability to apply these technology capabilities to business needs using creative and innovative methods. Business Philosophy: - “There is nothing a computer cannot do, that money and time cannot buy” - “There is a opportunity and solution for every problem” Specialties entrepreneur,innovation,imagination,creativity,resourcefulness,early adopter,research, analysis, planning, strategy for business growth. Work Experience Corporation has been in Advertising and Marketing since 1987. We started our Internet group as of 1994. Our uniqueness comes in understanding Internet connectivity as well as Internet Marketing. Our clients are larger national and global cor

porations including franchises. Our web marketing agency provides the following core competencies: Research and Strategy, Website Development, Website Per Page Optimization (SEO), Web Marketing Strategies, Organic Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Google Adwords Advertising, Analytics and Analysis, and Local Business Web Marketing. Our Local Business Web Marketing is designed for national franchises and national companies with local stores. We provide Store Level Marketing, Store Level Customer Ratings and Reviews Management, Hyperlocal Advertising, and our Mobile Locations Finder mobile app. Specialties entrepreneur,innovation,imagination,creativity,resourcefulness,early adopter,research, analysis, planning, strategy for business growth. Web Marketing including SEO, Reputation Management, Customer Ratings and Review Management, Local Business Listing Marketing Management. Please refer to Professional experience for more details.

Blog/Web site: http://www.smartfindsgeographicmarketing Twitter: www.twitter.com/smartfinds Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/SmartFinds White paper/research: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/author/melih-oztalay/ http://melihoztalay.sys-con.com http://www.dailyseotip.com/?s=melih Books/articles published: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/author/melih-oztalay/ http://melihoztalay.sys-con.com http://dailyseotip.com/?s=melih Awards/associations/memberships: 2009 Companies To Watch Michigan 50

internet marketing, web marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, local business listings, local business marketing, geographic marketing, search marketing, Adwords, Google adwords, Google Places, mobile marketing, reputation management, Ratings and Reviews Read more at www.profnetconnect.com

Lead Generators For Local Automotive Stores Are Losing Their Effectiveness

We certainly agree with the comments made in LinkedIn groups wondering why car dealerships are not getting the volume of leads they used to or the quality of leads they used to from national lead generators. Our own experience with Penske car dealerships have seen very similar results from national lead generators. Leads from the OEM websites, the dealerships own website, Google Adwords far exceed that coming from national lead generators. We need to augment and expand on the discussions in LinkedIn automotive groups and break them up into three major groups. There is no one silver bullet to answer “why”, rather there are multiple elements that make up the total answer. 1. Search Engines Search engine maps and their listings have been evolving since 2007. By the end of 2008 they were in the first page search results. Unfortunately, the financial meltdown that caused many businesses to hold on their budgets in 2009 and most of 2010 kept them away from seeing the evolution and maturity of the Local Business Listings as a marketing tool to reach local consumers. At the end of 2010 major changes from Google pushed local results before national results. This includes geo-tagged web pages / web sites and local business listings (aka Google Places and aka the interactive yellow pages). An organic web marketing strategy has to focus more on local over national with websites, web pages, micro website strategies, and local business listings. Please note this is about “marketing” not “advertising”…web marketing has a shelf life of years! …web advertising has shelf life of a few seconds and only good as long as you put money into it. Two Google issues also play into using local business listings: A. Google Places is not about what you do on Google, but also Google validating your information on other websites, known as citations. Too many companies focus only on Google Places and can’t understand why it doesn’t work. B. Amongst various data point, one of the data point Google ranks local listings on is customer ratings and reviews. It is important to actively manage these, not only for negative ones, but securing positive ones and facilitating positive re-enforcement. 2. Mobile Marketing Mobile searches have not only been increasing in usage, but the searches are showing better quality of leads. We are seeing this in our managed Google Adwords campaigns in which mobile clicks are outperforming non-mobile clicks and are also costing less. An Google Adwords strategy that encompasses keywords, ad extensions, image ads, and also are all equally prepared for mobile, will show better results than national 3rd party lead generators. 3. Hyperlocal Advertising Hyperlocal Advertising is the next main growing element in reaching local consumers. Ex-newspapers journalists have been opening up their own city or neighborhood websites with local news and information. Larger entities like AOL have been growing their Patch.com websites and this industry also includes websites like Examiner.com. Amongst the local journalist and these national hyperlocal sites consumers are responding very well to them and in fact have browsers opening to them as their initial home page. Focusing on editorials and advertising (text, image or banners) becomes part of the web strategy in reaching local consumers for local stores. Particularly for national companies with stores nationwide whose business revenue is dependent upon the local consumer. If you look at all three elements (Search Engines, Mobile Marketing and Hyperlocal Advertising) we will see that there is no one single answer as to why national 3rd party lead generators are not as effective. Perhaps had the 2008 global financial bankruptcy not happened and business continued as usual, many businesses would have realized these changes much sooner. The ongoing evolution, maturation and technology changes/additions that takes place on the web create a very dynamic and fluid environment that is not necessarily comforting to business. Nothing is ever stagnant and one has to always adopt technologies early to take advantage of reaching consumers that have no problem adopting technology changes earlier than business. Unfortunately, business tends to take its time in making these decisions and also expect that their investment in “one thing” will continue forever. Neither which is true or good for the business. For this reason it all comes down to ongoing education and communications focusing on the marketing processes versus just executing silvers of technology tasks. The difference between a marketing agency versus a technology company is well apparent because of the communications. Marketing agencies are focused on pushing ideas and marketing strategies with ongoing communications with clients. Technology companies tend to wait for orders from their customers, who unfortunately, many not know what they should request or what they are requesting. Certainly your time resources are limited and Geographic Marketing Solutions for multi-location companies are provided by Smartfinds Internet Marketing. Let the experts of over 17 years Internet marketing experience help you use local business marketing for national company stores through monthly managed marketing services, broadcast data services for mass business data distribution, and our Mobile Locations Finder mobile app. Smartfinds Internet Marketing 330 East Maple Road #503, Birmingham, MI 48009 Toll-Free: (866) 501-5758 Fax: (866) 501-5758 http://www.smartfindsgeographicmarketing.com Read more at smartfinds.posterous.com

Lead Generators For Local Automotive Stores Are Losing Their Effectiveness

We certainly agree with the comments made in LinkedIn groups wondering why car dealerships are not getting the volume of leads they used to or the quality of leads they used to from national lead generators. Our own experience with Penske car dealerships have seen very similar results from national lead generators. Leads from the OEM websites, the dealerships own website, Google Adwords far exceed that coming from national lead generators.

We need to augment and expand on the discussions in LinkedIn automotive groups and break them up into three major groups. There is no one silver bullet to answer “why”, rather there are multiple elements that make up the total answer. Read more at www.smartfindsgeographicmarketing.com

November 14, 2011 Geographic Marketing Local Business Listings Previewed In Google Search Results Google has been allowing for web pages to be previewed before clicking on a search result for quite some time since 2010. Equally we have seen a number of changes taking place during 2011 in Local Business Listings from Google’s Places and Maps. These changes have include the removal of third party reviews, layout changes to what information is viewable and a strong focus on securing ratings and reviews. Google Places results which provide local results before national results now received the instant preview feature too and are displayed on the first page of the search results. This is a new functionality that will further encourage and require businesses to take control of their Local Business Listings to insure local customers get the marketing information the business wishes to provide. What is probably more important is has been enhanced with multiple layouts and provides the searcher more information than the organic results of general websites. You can hover over a Google Places listing and see everything from Maps to Videos, Photos and more in the right column. What is probably more surprising is that the ads are replaced with the preview information. The implications of the Adwords Ads being replaced with the preview information certainly has other implications that we will have to discuss separately. The following information is provided by Google’s Instant help page: &nsbp; Before Google Instant, the typical searcher took more than 9 seconds to enter a search term, and we saw many examples of searches that took 30-90 seconds to type. Using Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search. If everyone uses Google Instant globally, we estimate this will save more than 3.5 billion seconds a day. That’s 11 hours saved every second. 15 new technologies contribute to Google Instant functionality. &nsbp; Let’s take a look at the information included in the instant preview of Google Places Local Business Listing. Map While the general search results always show a map with all Google Places Local Business Listings, if you hover over a listing you will see only the listing you are hovering over. The map links to Google Maps where you can then obtain more details including directions. Customer Ratings and Reviews Recent studies have shown how 6 in 10 customers make their buying decisions based on what has been posted to the local business listings. Of course this goes well beyond Google and becomes equally important to insure satisfied customers have posted positive ratings and reviews while the business manages the process of tending to negative ratings and reviews too. &nsbp; Images, Photos, Videos, Coupons, Offers, Promotions This is where the marketing content a business provides within their Google Places Local Business Listings for their local store becomes very important. Whether it is products, services, advertisements, coupons, offers, discounts, etc. Taking the initiative to secure your local business listings by claiming them and then managing them with regularity. Street View Probably not as well known is the panoramic photo that is provided by Google for that businesses address. You can get a 360-degree view of the area by hovering over this panoramic photo. Some street view images have one for the interior while others only for the exterior. Eventually this will play into the integration of Google Places with Google Earth. Web Page Preview If Google can identify a web page for the business, the thumbnail of the business web page is displayed. This thumbnail appears to be a live snapshot and is directly linked to the web site. From a marketing perspective this the first impression a prospective customer will have with the business. Additional Details Included Prices, Hours of Operation, Public Transport, Reservations, Menus, Feedback to Google, Report a Problem, and links to additional third party ratings and review websites. Of course not everything here is applicable to all businesses and are displayed based on the information provided from the Google Places Business Management Console. As you can imagine the instant preview gives user the ability to “view” without having to click and this will directly impact the number the click through rate (CTR) of any individual listing. Most likely the CTR will go down in this case. &nsbp; With the ongoing changes by Google to the search results page along with the Google Places Local Business Listing, the industry continues to push hard for businesses to not only manage their local business listings, but to start focusing on store level marketing and store level reputation management (aka public relations). We can expect to see more changes and requiring businesses to add the appropriate policies and procedures to include this area as part of their web marketing strategies. Certainly your time resources are limited and Geographic Marketing Solutions for multi-location companies are provided by Smartfinds Internet Marketing. Let the experts of over 17 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly through monthly management marketing services and broadcast data services for mass business data distribution. Smartfinds Internet Marketing 330 East Maple Road #503, Birmingham, MI 48009 Toll-Free: (866) 501-5758 Fax: (866) 501-5758 &nsbp; http://www.smartfindsgeographicmarketing.com Read more at smartfinds.posterous.com

Smartfinds Geographic Marketing Local Search Marketing & Data Services Because All Business is Local Call (866) 501-5758

Geographic Marketing Local Business Listings Previewed In Google Search Results

Google Places results which provide local results before national results now received the instant preview feature too and are displayed on the first page of the search results. This is a new functionality that will further encourage and require businesses to take control of their Local Business Listings to insure local customers get the marketing information the business wishes to provide.

With the ongoing changes by Google to the search results page along with the Google Places Local Business Listing, the industry continues to push hard for businesses to not only manage their local business listings, but to start focusing on store level marketing and store level reputation management (aka public relations). We can expect to see more changes and requiring businesses to add the appropriate policies and procedures to include this area as part of their web marketing strategies. Read more at www.smartfindsgeographicmarketing.com

Dear Gracie: How Social Media Changed Branding

Grace Lavigne

I’m interested in tips for branders/advertisers/marketers on how social media is different from traditional media. Are there any tactics we should use specifically for social media vs. traditional media? How do brands become memorable through social media? What makes a brand successful on social media?

For example, social media allows consumers to have access to the ratings and reviews of fellow shoppers, says Melih Oztalay, CEO of SmartFinds Internet Marketing. A study by the e-tailing group and PowerReviews (found on MarketCharts.com) in September showed 6 out of 10 consumers base shopping decisions on the ratings and reviews of others, through social media sites and user-generated content. Read more at www.profnetconnect.com

What is geographical marketing and why is it important for local business? posted 5 hours ago in Internet Marketing  | Report question as…

I would like to add a different perspective on “Geographic Marketing”. While I understand how this term was used in the past (Shane’s definition), what we are finding is the following: 1. With search engines making local business listings available in the search results, along with Geo-Tagging web pages based on longitude, latitude, country, continent, state, city and zip code around the globe…I submit to you that the term Geographic Marketing’s definition is changing along with it. 2. We are finding that customers (whether local business, national businesses with local stores, or local franchise owners) are responding well to the term “Geographic Marketing” with their perception being that Geographic “Web” Marketing is about a marketing method that directly aids their local store to reach local consumers. Read more at www.linkedin.com

September 26, 2011 5 Smart Reasons To Outsource Geographic Marketing Services

Geographic Marketing is the key to making your business stand out to local consumers, but are you taking advantage of these great business marketing tools? Are your stores dependent upon the local geography for your revenue? If you’re not using the full power of Geographic Marketing as an additional business marketing tool to reach local consumers, then you are missing out on a significant local business marketing opportunity. Considering that local business listings show up on the first page of search results, in mobile searches, and in mobile applications, this is a local business marketing tool you don’t want to ignore. The only way local listings show up in these various search results is if you have managed your listings by entering your business marketing information for each store. If you’re wondering how to enter your local business marketing information, it begins by claiming your listing and seize the management of each store’s local business listing. By no means should you think the geographic marketing process starts and ends with Google. There are multiple search engines, social communities, 411 websites, GPS websites and various other business directories that are accessed by consumers and mobile application developers and provide business information for a specified search area (latitude and longitude or street address). It is equally important to keep in mind that geographic marketing is not a one-time process. You have to manage these listings by updating your store’s local business marketing information including keywords, photos, videos, coupons, and events on a regular basis. Local listings are an interactive geographic marketing tool that can be accessed and managed 24x7x365. If you’re wondering what I mean by “interactive” geographic marketing tools, keep in mind that consumers get to post their ratings and reviews about your store, your business, products, or services. As a corporate multi-location business, it is important to get satisfied customers to post their feedback in order to negate any negative reviews. If you do get negative reviews, there is a process that allows you to dispute them either as a rebuttal, an apology, or an acknowledgement. This process adds a new layer of public relations at the local business marketing level which large multi-location corporations are unfamiliar. Let’s take a look at the five reasons why you probably want to outsource your geographic marketing services to a company with experience and expertise who can manage this for your company across multiple local listing websites. 1. You Have a Business Marketing Need for Revenue You have to manage these listings by updating your: keywords, description and general text copy, photos (products, services, company), videos (tv commercials and others), coupons (discounts, offers), and events (promotions) …..on a monthly basis! And don’t stop at Google, keep going to Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, Local.com, Citysearch, Mapquest and many others that are quickly becoming consumer favorites. 2. You Have a Public Relations Need Consumers have the ability to post their experience with your store, your business, products, or services to these local business listings. While it never requires a request for a customer to post a negative review, it is a smart local business marketing strategy to consider how you plan on asking satisfied customers to post positive ratings and reviews. Reviews have a quantitative component to them and thus are open to search engines using them as another data point in the future to rank your website. Anyone posting a review can indicate one star (negative) to five stars (positive). From a geographic marketing standpoint, it is important to push for as many positive reviews as possible. What do you do with negative reviews? You have to do something! You cannot let them sit in your local business listing on multiple websites for customers to interpret. Your options include: dispute, rebuttal, or apologize and you need an experienced local business marketing specialist to handle these responses on an individual basis. Keep in mind that customer reviews are syndicated around the web from one local business listings website to another. 3. You Have a Security Need Your local business listing is a free geographic marketing service provided by a variety of local business listings websites, search engines, social communities, 411 websites, business directories and more. So, what should you as a business expect for free? Probably not much, and that includes the level of security around these local business listings. The reality is that someone can hijack your listing and manage the listing either against you or in their favor. In order to avoid a local business listing hijacking you will need to ensure that you claim your listing at multiple local listing websites. While claiming your listing is a good starting point to your geographic marketing process, you also have to consider how you will monitor duplicate listings that enter into the information system and need to be continually claimed and monitored. 4. You Have a Data Accuracy Need Geographic marketing information about your stores on the internet comes from multiple sources and from sources over many years of selling data. We have seen many situations where business names vary, phone numbers are inaccurate, addresses and map markers showing the actual location (latitude and longitude) are not correct, and the list goes on. Once again, this is not something that stops at Google, but needs to be reviewed, monitored, and managed at multiple local listing websites in order to ensure customers have access to the most accurate business marketing information possible. You do not want to miss mobile application developers either, as they decide randomly whose database they will use. 5. You Have a Time Resource Need Hopefully you have learned from our discussions here that the time needed to claim, update, monitor, and manage your local listings at multiple local listings website is significant . Since the geographic marketing process does not end with your work being completed one time, it becomes a regular monthly process that has to be managed by a local business marketing expert. Furthermore, this process is in no way entirely automated and requires experienced local business marketing labor resources in order to make decisions. For example, you are required to ensure business marketing information consistency across multiple local listing websites; analyze monthly local listing analytics to take actionable changes to your listing at multiple local listing websites; respond to consumer reviews at their origin since consumer reviews are syndicated across many different local listing websites; and more – the list goes on and on. Ultimately, a large corporation will not have the time resources to manage the geographic marketing process effectively, and the support of experienced Internet business marketing professionals will be required. Certainly your time resources are limited and Geographic Marketing Solutions for multi-location companies are provided by Smartfinds Internet Marketing. Let the experts of over 17 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly through monthly management marketing services and broadcast data services for mass business data distribution. Smartfinds Internet Marketing 330 East Maple Road, Suite 503 Birmingham, MI 48009 Tel: (866) 501-5758 Fax: (866) 501-5758 Read more at smartfinds.posterous.com

The Detroit Metropolitan CVB includes Melih Oztalay of SmartFinds Internet Marketing As Guest Speaker On Customer Ratings and Reviews

“What’s the Online Buzz?” is the third and final installment of the DMCVB membership educational series focusing on business ratings and reviews by local customers

September 26, 2011 (Birmingham, MI): Smartfinds Internet Marketing (http://www.smartfindsmarketing.com ), an Internet Marketing pioneer for more than 20 years and leader in web marketing including geographic marketing has been invited as the guest speaker for the Detroit Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau’s (DMCVB, http://www.visitdetroit.com) educational series for their members. The event focuses on learning how to manage the business online reputation at the local geographic level.

The event is held on Thursday, September 29, 2011, from 2 – 4 p.m., at the Best Western Plus Sterling Inn at 34911 Van Dyke Avenue, Sterling Heights, MI 48312. You must be a DMCVB member to attend. You can contact Angela Gillis at the DMCVB for further information by phone at (313) 202-1973.

See more at www.smartfindsmarketing.com

Geographic Marketing Optimization is Important for All Businesses September 22, 2011 Edit Geographic marketing has become increasingly more important in recent years for businesses seeking to grow their local consumer base. You may have noticed that a Google search result also shows the local map on the right side, and the local listings (aka as Google Places at Google) are part of the organic search results. If you follow the evolution of local business listings on search engines since 2007 you will find that this geographic marketing tool is invaluable to any local business marketing strategy. The disappointing issue is that most businesses have not tapped into their listing as a local business marketing tool. For businesses that have engaged, they are only looking at Google without regard to other websites that consumers visit. For instance Yelp is a significant source for many consumers over Google. While the industry is 3 years ahead of businesses, the businesses that are dependent upon the local geography for their revenue are unclear that they can actively manage these listings through a geographic marketing service instead of watching them passively. All Businesses Can Take Advantage of Local Business Marketing Tools First of all, a local business is not a small business. While we have discussed this in more detail, we have to keep in mind that national chains with local presence are also dependent upon the local geography for their revenue. So, it doesn’t make a difference if you’re as large as a Home Depot store or as small as a local restaurant, geographic marketing will benefit any size business as long as you can claim the store listing related to a specific state or city that is related to a certain latitude and longitude. Secondly, the fact that local listings are included in organic Google search results is a telling sign that this is related to both Business-To-Business (B2B) as well as Business-To-Consumer (B2C) models. If you think that B2B won’t have its customer posting ratings and reviews, then you are in for a surprise. B2B businesses that seek revenue from the local economy should equally be tapping into geographic marketing tools like a B2C business. Customers Decide To Do Business Based On Search Results Google search results not only display regular organic search results, but they also include local business listings (and the associated business marketing information) that are relevant to the requested search or are located near a specified city, street address, or latitude and longitude. Local listings are showing up above fold and tend to show more results than the organic website results. Local business listing results are also interesting in that they show quite a bit of business marketing information to a local customer or consumer. Of course the basic information like business name, address, phone number, telephone number, website link and location on the map is pretty standard. If a business has offers, videos, photos are provided as a link. The number of customer reviews and the average star rating is also prominent to the person searching. Translated, this means the local customer or consumer can quickly see from the business marketing information provided if they want to even click on your local business listings or call you. Geographic Marketing Optimization Becomes Important Businesses now have two geographic marketing tools that need optimization: their website and their local business listings. Since the local business listing is effectively the interactive yellow pages of the 21st century, businesses need to stop passively watching and actively engaging with their local business listing by implementing appropriate business marketing tools and information. It is important to remember that mass production data submission services are only a small part of the overall marketing strategy. You now have to look into more details like regular changes to photos, videos, offers, discounts, promotions, events to keep the local customer engaged and willing to click on your listing. Part of any effective geographic marketing process requires that you first claim your local business listings, followed by their initial update. Once this is complete, you then have to consider monitoring and managing the local business listing just like your website. You will find that local business listings can actually be a website, but it is probably better to use them as supporting business marketing tool to your primary website. In order for you to show up in the search results, you have to be sure the local business listing has all the right information about your business, products and services. That is then followed by adding local business marketing information including photos, videos, coupons, offers, discounts, events and other information that will help the local customer decide to do business with you. Managing your geographic marketing tools also includes managing customer reviews and engaging with them not only to secure positive reviews from satisfied customers, but to ensure positive public relations with any customers that are less than satisfied. Finally, the geographic marketing optimization process includes watching the local business listing analytics (separate from your website) and making decisions about how to tweak your listing. …and did we mention this goes well beyond Google? A variety of other websites are included such as Bing, Yahoo, Yelp, Local.com, Merchant Circle, Citysearch, Map Quest and many others that include search engines, social communities, 411 websites, GPS websites, and business directories. Outsourcing Your Geographic Marketing Process There are generally two types of companies that provide geographic marketing services. The first are those that provide “data” only services, which really doesn’t help you much since they don’t get involved in the claiming process. The second provides geographic marketing services, but be careful here since some of them are not well staffed to do anything beyond Google. Seeking assistance for geographic marketing services is no different than seeking professional help for your website’s search engine optimization. You will not only need to have professional help in the optimization of your local business listings, but you will also need someone to monitor for duplicate listings, customer reviews, updating your marketing information, and analyzing the analytics. Certainly your time resources are limited and Geographic Marketing Solutions for multi-location companies are provided by Smartfinds Internet Marketing. Let the experts of over 17 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly through monthly management marketing services and broadcast data services for mass business data distribution. Smartfinds Internet Marketing 330 East Maple Road, Suite 503 Birmingham, MI 48009 Tel: (866) 501-5758 Fax: (866) 501-57587 Read more at localbusinesslisting.wordpress.com